And I scored a cool little plaster 'paint it yourself' magnet kit at the Reject shop for 5$... the kids spent a couple of hours on the patio painting and having a good old time.  Merry's sun got painted so much, it ended up black.  The end is night people!

 And there were lots of visits to the park and exploring around... and Dad surprised the boys with tennis rackets all around!  So we wandered up to the courts several times to play a bit... Daim & I have the general idea how to play, although neither of us are great... but we just wanted to boys to get the hang of hitting the ball!

Then school went back... and THIS is what happened to Frodo & I  on the way to his first Spanish in the park session of the term!  UGH!  The car died... on a hill... on a busy street.  Poor Frodo was bored to death for the entire 2 hours it took the tow truck to get to us (apparently Mondays are a bad day to need a tow, apparently 'people' wait till Monday to have their car towed to the mechanic... I must just have a great mechanic, I can have it towed to him anytime and just leave a msg to please have a peek at it :)
 We got towed to Larry's Pitstop (Larry is a legend!) and he had it fixed and on the road again in under half an hour... FREE of charge.  Larry and his wife have earned themselves a case of vino for being so awesome.  (we sorta have 5 cases sitting around ... hubby's employers give us a case about once a month lol)
 Since our day was shot... we decided to bake cookies!   Frodo did almost all the work, including the using of the mixer @@.  Yeah there was a bit of mess lol but he had fun...

(Jon coined that last phrase lol)  Update, my hip is a LOT better after a serious massage with Tiger balm last night by dh... plus a handy valium tablet to turn the muscle into mush so I could sleep ;)  I don't know how readily available Tiger balm is outside the pacific region.. but man that is some awesome stuff.  It's a chinese topical thing that just works wonders, and smells good too.   Anyway, still a bit sore, but I can get around more like a 60yr old instead of a 90yr old lol.  

Yesterday the radiology people sent the films home with me and said they were faxing the report to the doc as soon as the radiologist was done writing it up.  I found it amusing that on the flap of the envelope they seal it with a sticker that says "CONFIDENTIAL:  To be opened ONLY by referring doctor"   It's MY friggin hip!... confidential my arse.  So of course, I immediately opened it up to have a look (just as I did with my pneumonia xrays hehehe)  The ultrasound looked like... well not a damn thing honestly lol.  But the hip xrays are wicked cool!  Excellent shots if I do say so myself.  

Interestingly enough, our first Magic School Bus science unit is going to be 'Inside the Human Body'   and now I have rocking visual aids for the skeletal system when we get to it!  Hip and chest xrays.   Which brings us to masochism for knowledge sake lol.  I was chatting with Jon (must get him a nickname too, everyone else has one!) on facebook and he said wow.. you're such a devoted  mom,  you nearly crippled yourself to provide learning materials for the little dudes.  That's awesome...  I nearly died laughing.   The guy has a warped sense of humor.. yeah I'll take at least partial credit for that ;)    

So, sometime in February, my house will be decorated with sticky taped up pictures of my various internal structures... all in the sake of learning ;)

and men, go right out the window apparently!   Yesterday while I was out I did somethin funny to my hip, and have been in pain since.  I didn't fall, or get hit by a car or anything dramatic... I took a step... to the side.  And heard a little thunk :S    

So today we did not start doing a little easing into schoolwork.  Today we waited for dh to arrive home and we went to the doctor, and then the radiology place for an xray & ultrasound.  The highlight of the day was sitting in a small waiting room in a black paper bathrobe, that barely reached my knees, with complete strangers.. of both genders even.  We were not amused.  We also still don't know what the radiologist had to say, as it was 5pm before I left the place and the doc won't likely check her faxes until tomorrow morning.  

We shall see if we even make it to start anything by the end of this week the way I'm going right now!